Things That Might Have Been
by einootspork
Summary: It's been 5 years since the gang all knew each other in high school. Now that Chiyo-chan plans to return to Japan after a long time in America, they'll all begin to examine their lives.
1. Where Are They Now?

**DISCLAIMER:**_ I don't own Azumanga Daioh. That Azuma guy does._

* * *

**PROLOGUE**

The redheaded girl sat at her computer and drummed her fingers on the desk.

She scooted her seat in ever so slightly and hovered her hands over the keyboard, as if waiting for the words to pour out.

As any writer would guess, they of course didn't. Instead, her hands continued to hover, almost levitate, above the keys, waiting for inspiration to strike.

Soon, they were distracted, and started to drum again. One of them reached for the mouse to start playing music, but changed its mind halfway and contented itself with running through its owner's hairstyle.

The girl sighed, adjusted her chair again slightly, and asked herself, "How should I write this?"

* * *

**THINGS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN**

_an Azumanga fanfic by Einoo_

* * *

**CHAPTER I**

**WHERE ARE THEY NOW?**

_"I know a woman, became a wife_

_These are the very words she uses to describe her life:_

_She said, 'A good day ain't got no rain.'_

_She said, 'A bad day's when I lie in bed and think of things that might have been.' "_

--Paul Simon, _Slip Slidin' Away_

* * *

_Where's that buzzing sound coming from?_

That was the first thing that the woman thought when she woke up.

She thought for a little while longer, and then noted how she couldn't actually think because of the way her head was throbbing.

The first thing she said was the following:

"Ow..."

It was hard to say this, because her tongue felt heavy and unable to do any work. In fact, her whole body felt this way.

On top of that, she still was unsure of where she was.

It was all very strange. At the same time, though, it had an odd feeling of familiarity.

It was at this point that the woman realized the alarm clock was buzzing.

She opened her eyes, immediately realizing that her previous doubts regarding where she was had partly stemmed from the fact that she actually couldn't see anything, and glanced sluggishly at the clock. It said it was 8:46 AM.

Good. That was normal. A little early, in fact. She directed her gaze vaguely toward the ceiling.

The clock continued to buzz. The woman groped for the snooze button, but the buzzing noise continued. She hit the clock harder, and it still did not continue. She hit it harder still. The numbers flickered on the clock, but nothing else happened.

Then she realized the buzzing was coming from her own head.

_But why would my head be buzzing? _the confused woman wondered.

She looked again at the clock – _her _clock, she realized, feeling a rush of relief for reasons she couldn't quite explain – and it now said 8:47 AM.

Good. Time was being consistent.

The woman sighed, feeling a bit better. She now knew where she was and what the time was. However, she was still apprehensive because she didn't know why she was there or how she had gotten there in the first place.

"Wh..." she began, before getting cut off by a gigantic yawn.

The woman then heard a stirring from next to her. She immediately turned to face the source of this disturbance.

She yelped and fell off the bed in surprise.

When she recovered from her fall, she got up, dusted herself off, and took a closer look at what she had seen. It was a man, probably around the same age as she was, although it was hard to tell. The woman did not entirely object to him being in her bed, but it was highly disconcerting that she did not know who he was or how he had gotten there.

The man fidgeted some more. Then, quite suddenly (or so it seemed to the woman), he sat up, awoken by the woman's yelp. The woman, being considerate, gave him a second or so to gather his thoughts before shouting, "Hey!!"

The man turned his head toward her in surprise, clutching his head, and asked quietly, "...Uh... Who are you?"

"I'm–" The woman had to pause for a second before she remembered her name– "Tomo Takino!! Who the hell are you??"

The man stared beyond Tomo for a second, then responded, "I'm... Uh–"

"You know what?!" Tomo interrupted loudly. "It doesn't matter who you are. The important thing is..." But she trailed off, not knowing what the important thing was.

"Geez... Would you quit yelling?" the man moaned.

"The important thing is... uh..." Tomo repeated, completely ignoring the man.

"You don't know what the important thing is, do you?"

"I most certainly _do!_" Tomo insisted. "And that is... that... it is important... because..."

"Because we had sex," the man finished.

Tomo stood speechless for a second. Then, she responded, "...We did?"

The man nodded.

"Ah," Tomo said, not really meaning it. "So we did, then."

Then something clicked.

"Ah!" Tomo repeated. "Yeah! We _did_, didn't we? I was... uh... somewhere... doing something... and you came up to me... or maybe I came up to you... But I think I remember talking and... geez, then something else happened and... Then I think remember us having sex. I win!" She pointed a finger at the man in triumph.

"Wait, you're actually happy you had drunken sex with a random guy?"

"I'm happy because I figured it out!"

"No, I actually was the one who told you."

"Of course you were." Tomo waved her hand dismissively.

"You really oughtn't to have had sex with me, though," said the man. "That sort of behavior is unbefitting for a police officer."

"...I'm... a police officer?" Tomo scratched her head and looked around. Then her eyes landed on the police officer's cap hanging on top of her lamp and she yelped.

"Shit!" she cursed. "I _am_ a police officer! What am I gonna do! If they ever found out about this I'd so totally be discharged! Whatdoido? WHAT DO I DO?!" She frantically spun around in place.

"You could just-"

"I gotta call someone!" Tomo said, panicked. She lunged for the phone on the man's side of the bed and missed, instead knocking her head on the bed and falling onto the floor.

This seemed to have steadied her a bit, since when she got up and brushed herself off, she said to herself, "OK, Tomo, don't panic. Think this through. All you have to do is think it through. Who could you call that would be able to help you out?"

She thought for a second, and then lit up. "Oh, of course! I'll call Yomi! She'll–"

But she abruptly crashed back down to Earth again. She hadn't been in contact with Yomi for nearly six months now...

* * *

Koyomi Mizuhara sat calmly in her chair and read the day's newspaper. She sighed.

"It really is terrible, what's happening in the world today..."

No one answered her, because she was alone in her office.

She knew she probably shouldn't be reading the newspaper in her office when she was supposed to be doing work, but the workday had just started, and since she had skipped breakfast in the rush of all the preparations, she had not had time to read the newspaper. It was important to her that she keep up with current events, so she read the news every day. Even when it depressed her, which it inevitably did.

She was just about to read another article on how things were going downhill when there was a knock at the door. She hastily stuffed her newspaper in one of her desk drawers and said, "Come in!"

A rather downtrodden-looking young man entered through the door and walked up to Koyomi's desk.

"Mizuhara-san...?" he began.

"Yes, Suzuki-san?" said Koyomi.

"Listen, about that report I was supposed to turn in on Friday... I–"

"Didn't do it?"

The man squirmed slightly but continued to speak. "My wife is sick, very badly, and I didn't have time for it. I had to send her to the emergency room, and I tried

to do some of it in the waiting room, but it was hard to concentrate..."

Koyomi looked over him with a very cold and very shrewd expression. "Really? Why didn't I hear about this earlier?"

The man continued shakily, "W-well I... I..." before losing his voice.

Koyomi adjusted her glasses slightly. "You were afraid about how I would react, weren't you?"

The man nodded.

Koyomi sighed and leaned forward in her chair. "Look–" Her employee flinched– "I know what the consensus is around here about my management style..."

"I... I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes you do. The consensus is that I'm kind of an ogre. Is it not?"

"Well... I..."

"Come on, now," Koyomi said, a hint of humor in her voice. "I don't bite."

"Well..." Her employee said, cringing, "Yeah... It kind of is..."

"Do you know why this is?"

The man blinked. "Uh... no... not really," he admitted.

"It's because I am person who likes to be _firm_ about rules. I lay down the rules clearly and then expect them to be followed. You see..."

Koyomi didn't much enjoy her job. Too often she had to be like this, ignoring any compassion she might have for anyone in order to make sure "things stayed in line". She knew that she was the person for the job – even since her high school days she had always made it clear that she didn't take any crap from anyone – but after a while it got very wearing on her. All this stuff she had to repeat about keeping the company "well-oiled" held no real meaning to her. It was just recitation. To be honest, she wasn't sure what the company she worked for actually did, but she knew for sure that whatever it was, it didn't really matter. Not to her, and not to the world in general. And she knew too that her position in middle management didn't mean anything either. Ultimately, she was expendable.

She had always said in high school that she, unlike other folks she knew, was going to _make something_ of herself. In a way, she had: She had a job with pay that was quite good. She was moving up the company ladder. Her car was a very nice one. But sometimes at night she wondered if she had really made anything of herself in the end. She knew her employees hated her and she knew why.

The one thing she really felt satisfied about these days was her decision about her former best friend, Tomo. Despite Tomo's fairly good job, she had been struggling for a while due to an irresponsibility as vast as the ocean surrounding Japan. She always spent her money on the frivolous, whether it be alcohol or some new technological gadget or video game. Whatever it was, though, it was never the rent. So of course, this meant she was constantly mooching off Koyomi and taking advantage of their friend status. Every month, Koyomi would sigh and grudgingly

hand over money to her friend in the increasingly dim hopes that Tomo might be able to fend for herself the next month, but this never happened. Instead, Tomo's situation got increasingly worse and Koyomi finally had to wash her hands of her best friend's actions and cut contact. It was a hard decision, but she had to do it for the good of herself and Tomo as well.

Koyomi realized that she had sort of lost track of what she had been saying. She knew it wouldn't matter, since she knew this stuff by heart, but she thought that if her attention had lapsed for a while that it was probably time to wrap the speech up.

"...and so I'm going to give you a warning. You'll need to have that report on my desk by tomorrow. I'm sorry about this, but it's honestly nothing personal. This is just about efficiency. You understand, right?"

The man, looking considerably paler than when he had come in, nodded.

"Good." Koyomi nodded back at him. "And I really do hope your wife turns out okay. See you."

"Y-yes..." The man hurried out the door.

Koyomi fetched her newspaper out of the desk drawer and continued to read about war, famine and pestilence.

* * *

There was a buzz, an antsiness in the air at Azuma High. Summer was approaching fast, and the children were excited at the prospect of fun in the sun, sports, maxin' and relaxin' on the beach, vacations, et cetera et cetera et cetera. Class was the last thing students were focused on. In fact, even the teachers were getting restless. They were getting a little spacey – but you wouldn't be able to tell the difference in this one.

"All right, class," she said vaguely, "Where're you guys goin' over the summer?" About half the class raised their hands; the other half just looked embarrassed. "A'ight, how 'bout... Uh, you... I forget your name..."

"That's OK," the boy in question responded. "And I'm going to visit Okinawa with my family!"

"Nice, nice, I been there before on a class trip... Those Shiisai things're neat. What about you, Suzuki-san?"

"If... family issues work out, I'm going to visit France..." the boy she called on responded glumly.

"Neat! Watch out for flyin' baguettes. Those things're deadly. And you, uh... I forget your name too..."

The girl she called on responded, "Actually I'm not going anywhere, but I was just wondering where you're going to go this summer, Kasuga-sensei! You're such an interesting person, I'm sure you have some kind of special plan as to where you're going!"

The other students murmured in agreement.

"Aw jeez, I really... Thanks guys..." Ayumu Kasuga (formerly known by her high school friends as Osaka) said, blushing slightly. "I'm goin'... I mean... I guess you could say that I'm... not really goin'... anywhere..."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," the girl she had called upon apologized.

"Naw, naw, it's alright," Ayumu said, smiling. "I just go with the flow. Prob'ly in like a day, or ten minutes, or maybe like a million years or something, I'll wind up goin' on some kinda vacation thing with somebody or somethin'... Or maybe I'll just go on that Astronomy Club trip with Aida-sensei..."

"Ooooh!" said one particularly ecxitable young girl. "You should go with us! Aida-sensei says we're gonna have a campout and there's gonna be food and drinks and she'll play guitar and sing and on the last day we'll get to go to this big observatory and-"

She suddenly stopped talking, perhaps realizing that everyone was looking at her funny, and blushed.

"Uh... yeah..." Ayumu coughed. "Maybe I'll go... I do like food. Anyway, uh, before school gets out, I have another exercise in flexible thinkin' for you guys!" About half the students rolled their eyes, but the other half suddenly lit up. "This one is an old but good one."

She picked up a piece of chalk and copied down the riddle as she said it: "What belongs to you but is most often used by others?" She turned around. "OK, five minutes! Go!"

Once again, about half the class merely leaned back in their chairs and did nothing, but the rest immediately started concentrating hard. Some even took out paper and pencils to better solve the problem. Between the two different types of students, the next five minutes of class went by in near-complete silence.

When the time was up, Ayumu said, funnily enough, "Time's up!" She looked at them expectantly. "Well?"

The girl who had asked Ayumu where she was going for the summer piped up first. "The answers to my math homework!"

Both halves of the class laughed.

"Good answer," Ayumu said, "But not the one I was lookin' for. How about... uh... you?" She pointed at yet another student she had forgotten the name of.

The boy said, "A video game system."

"Sorry to tell you this, but not everyone's as generous as you," Ayumu grinned. "Give up, guys?"

The silence she got in return informed her that they had, in fact, given up.

"Your name!"

Half the class started applauding. The other half rolled their eyes and made snarky, semi-clever comments among themselves, all along the lines that it was rich of her to say that when she herself could never remember anyone's name in the class.

The bell rang. "Well, looks like that's the end!" Ayumu said cheerfully. "Now c'mon, guys, get outta here already!" she said, gesturing theatrically toward the door.

No sooner had she said it than the kids rushed out of the classroom. Respectfully, of course – but quickly. Very, very quickly.

* * *

Ayumu was smiling and humming vaguely to herself in the teachers' room, shuffling random papers. She was so intent upon this that she failed to notice another teacher enter.

"Hello, Ayumu," said the teacher finally, and Ayumu shifted her gaze slowly in the direction the voice was coming from.

"Hi there Kaorin!" Ayumu said in a friendly but distracted manner. "How was your day?"

"Oh, great," Kaorin said. "Exhausting, of course, but it was great regardless. Besides, I can't complain; I don't really work here anyhow."

This was sort of true. Kaorin only worked here as a volunteer, and part-time. Her full-time job was, of course, one in astronomy. Given the unlikelihood of her returning to her old high school, her having ended up here with a former classmate was fated to occur. Or at least it was to Kaorin, since she had always been a sucker for those romantic sorts of notions, although most of her contemporaries would probably have referred to it as a fluke. Either way, it had been a most peculiar coincidence. Kaorin was quite renowned in her field, and often gave lectures at various colleges. Usually she didn't go to high schools, but when she had gotten a request from her old high school her interest was piqued. She thought she might go to see what had happened to her old hangout.

She had actually received the request from "Osaka" herself, but of course she did not recognize her former acquaintance's real name, so it was a total surprise when she realized it was that same spaced-out girl she had known in high school. Ayumu's subject was, to even more surprise on Kaorin's part, physics (she was later told by the teacher that she had chosen it because of wanting to know how flying pigtails could work or some similarly bizarre reason), but Ayumu actually covered more scientific ground than that, and often went on tangents relating to other fields of science, plus some art, some severely fractured literature, and good old fashioned misinformation. Since she and her lecturing had been received quite well at the school, plus the pull of an old friend, Kaorin came back for lectures frequently, and finally decided to start up an astronomy club there again, which had ceased due to lack of interest from teachers.

So, she worked at the school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, those being the most convenient times for her, plus spending a little extra time there getting paperwork done or simply visiting. Through school matters, she and Ayumu had developed a closer bond to each other and considered themselves good friends.

"Yeah, my day was pretty good too," Ayumu responded. "The kids were a little more fidgety than usual, but summer vacation and stuff's comin' up. Oh, that reminds me. I was thinkin' of maybe coming along with your astronomy club this year on your trip! Would you be all right with that?"

Kaorin looked flattered. "Of course I'd be all right with that!" she said. "You're my friend, after all. You're going to have to pack some things with you, though. Toothbrushes, change of clothes, things of that sort. We're going out camping to a place where there's no light pollution and look through a telescope. Saturn is going to be especially close that week."

"Cool! Should I also bring my wocket-huntin' net?" Ayumu asked, with complete sincerity.

"Er, no," said Kaorin. "That won't be necessary."

"Well, if you're sure, but those wockets can sneak up on ya anywhere. Oh, by the way, Kaorin," Ayumu added, suddenly looking a bit more serious, "How're things goin' with you and your husband?"

"Oh, great," Kaorin smiled. "We're going to be celebrating our two-year anniversary next month, you know."

"That's fantastic!" Ayumu congratulated Kaorin. "You're so lucky to have found someone to spend the rest of your life with so soon. I'm prob'ly not gonna ever find a guy who likes me enough. They all think I'm some kinda nut!"

"Don't be like that," Kaorin said reprovingly. "You'll find someone eventually. You're a really great person, you know."

"Aw, shucks," Ayumu said, trying to look modest but failing to hide her pride. "I'm nothin' special."

"Don't believe a word of what she tells you, Osaka!" said a teacher who had managed to sneak into the staff room unnoticed. "It's a trap! Soon you'll be old and lonely like I am!"

"I told you I don't want to be called that anymore," Ayumu replied.

"Don't say things like that!" reprimanded another teacher who had entered the staff room with her friend.

"Oh, and I suppose _you're_ going to stop me, Nyamo?" the teacher, in her trademark zigzag sweater, mocked. "Besides, you know it's true. From experience!"

"Well, at least stop calling Ayumu-san 'Osaka', Yukari! You know she doesn't like to be called that name."

"Oh, have a sense of humor, would ya? I'm sure Osaka doesn't mind. Right, Osaka?"

Yes, Yukari and Minamo were still working at the school, and they had not changed much. They looked a little older, but for the most part, they looked basically indistinguishable from they did four or five years ago. And their personalities had changed even less. In fact, they behaved exactly the same as they did when they were teaching Ayumu in high school. For instance, everyone else at the school who had known her from before had adjusted to calling Ayumu by her real name, but stubborn Yukari-chan refused to give up the nickname that she had always gone by back in the day. This bothered Ayumu, but she knew there wasn't anything she could do to get this to stop.

"No, I don't mind," Ayumu sighed.

"See, toldja Nyamo," said Yukari.

Minamo merely sighed in response.

"So anyways," Yukari continued casually, "What're all you guys gonna do on your vacation? As usual, I'm going to go someplace very expensive."

"Actually," said Kaorin brightly, "Ayumu was just talking to me about possibly going with me on my astronomy trip this year!"

"Yes," Ayumu agreed. "It sounds quite fun!"

"Pssht," Yukari scoffed, waving a dismissive hand. "What kind of lame trip is that? You might as well just stay home the whole time and order pizza or something. You should come with me!"

"Oh?" Kaorin asked. "Where are you going?"

"She already told ya, Kaorin," Ayumu stated. "Somewhere very expensive! I bet it's an ice hotel on the moon."

_Damn,_ said Yukari to herself. _I should have thought of that!_ Out loud, though, she just continued, "No, no, I'm going to... _America_!"

If she had been expecting some sort of awe-struck gasp from this statement, as she surely must have been given the overblown way she announced it, she was sorely disappointed. Everyone else in the room just looked on her silently with confused expressions on their faces.

"Uh..." Nyamo pointed out, "America is... not really an expensive place... at all."

"Of course it's expensive!" Yukari maintained. "Why else would I go there on vacation?"

"Because it's all you can afford?" Kaorin postulated. "And you already know the language?"

The English teacher put her hands on her hips in a defiant manner. "Totally false! The United States is a terribly, terribly expensive place and since I'm positive no one else in this room besides me has ever been there, there's no way YOU can tell me for sure whether or not it costs loads and loads of money to visit there. Which, by the way, it does."

The others were not impressed, but Yukari did not show any sign of budging from her statement, so eventually everyone stopped looking at her and turned away to concentrate on their own business. Eventually Yukari, realizing no one was paying the slightest bit of attention to her, exited the room, grumbling to herself.

On her way out down the hallway, she ran into Kimura.

"Hello there, Yukari-sensei," Kimura said politely.

Yukari looked at him perplexedly for a second, then finally managed to say, "...Didn't you get fired?"

* * *

The same man who had previously been lectured in Koyomi's office was now waiting alone in a waiting room holding and stroking a small, excitable pet dog. Both the dog and its owner shared the same nervous look, although the man was much more subdued. This was why he had to hold his pet in his lap, otherwise the pet would have barked frantically and ran around the room. As it was it only did the former.

Just when this man thought he could wait no longer, his veterinarian finally arrived. "Hello," she said in a soft but firm voice, "...Uh–" She paused to check her clipboard– "Suzuki-san?" The man nodded to confirm that this was, in fact, his name. The veterinarian continued, "I'm Sakaki-san. You called to see me about your dog Daiki, right?"

The man nodded again, feeling a little insulted that the veterinarian remembered his pet's name and not his own, but saying nothing.

"All right, then, follow me," said Sakaki-san as she walked down the hall. Suzuki-san obediently followed her down said hall and into a room. He gave his dog to the veterinarian and stood by nervously as she examined him.

"You've had this dog for two years, correct?" Sakaki-san asked the nervous man. He nodded, and in return, she "hmmmm"ed.

She continued to examine the dog and quietly ask his owner questions, and Suzuki-san couldn't help noticing with apprehensiveness that the veterinarian grew more and more worried-looking as she did so. At first, though, he tried to ignore this by sticking his head in a sports-related magazine (the first he set eyes on). Soon, though, he felt as though he ought to try to cheer her up, perhaps in an attempt to deny that there was sure to be bad news about Daiki, and decided to engage her in conversation.

"Hey," he began.

"Yes?" said Sakaki-san distractedly.

"I've been reading this article, and... I dunno, you're probably not all that interested in what goes on in the athletic world..."

"Not much," Sakaki-san admitted, "But you know, I used to be quite the athlete at school..."

"Okay," the man said, "Well, they have this interview about this girl who did like really amazingly in the Olympics... "

"Hmm?"

"Yeah, apparently her name is... Kagura Keiko-san..."

To the man's pleasant surprise, the veterinarian turned her head over to him and let out a slight chuckle. "Really now?" she said. When Suzuki-san nodded, Sakaki-san responded, "Hah, I used to go to school with her."

"Really?" asked the man.

"Yes," Sakaki-san answered. "I'm not sure, but I think she considered me her rival? She used to challenge me all the time to athletic contests... I don't think she really understood me very well. I was never very interested in sports."

"Oh, that must have been annoying."

"A little, but I really didn't hold it against her. She was a little... overenthusiastic at times, but she really was a very nice person. She would never intentionally hurt someone's feelings."

"Ah."

After that, conversation ceased once more, and although Sakaki-san's mood had been brightened slightly by talk of her former high school friend, she quickly became worried once more, and when she was finished, she turned to her client with a grim look on her face.

"Well?" said the man expectantly.

"I'm sorry, Suzuki-san," said the veterinarian, and she looked as though she really was, "But it doesn't look good for your pet." She proceeded to explain the trouble with Daiki in a manner that the man could not understand at all, but then added something he understood very well: She grimaced as though bracing herself to say what she must, and then stated, "I think the only think we can do here is to... put him down."

The man looked as though he was the most miserable he had ever been in his life.

* * *

Later that night, Sakaki-san was checking her email when she noticed a mail from her old friend Chiyo-chan. She wasn't surprised (she received mail from her all the time), but something bout the subject line caught her eye.

As she read it, a smile started to appear on her face and gradually became wider and wider.

* * *

_Well? I like my other fic, yes, and might continue to update it, but I think this one will allow me a little more freedom and probably a lot more eloquence. This fic probably isn't in the same universe as the other one._

_Maaaan, this chapter took forever. I started it in mid-January and have been working on it off and on for quite a while. If only there wasn't so much _stuff_ I had to fit into this chapter. And if only my attention span wasn't so freaking terrible. Perhaps I could have split this up into more than one chapter, but I wanted to get all the exposition out of the way so I could get the story moving. Although I have to admit I did much enjoy writing all of it._


	2. The Letter

**DISCLAIMER:**_ I don't own Azumanga Daioh. That Azuma guy does._

* * *

**THINGS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN**

_an Azumanga fanfic by Einoo_

* * *

**CHAPTER II**

**THE LETTER**

_"Email is like a prison. A prison with no walls... and no toilet."_

--Strong Bad

* * *

Sakaki-san was up before the alarm.

This wasn't very unusual; Sakaki was usually punctual to the point of earliness. She had always been one of the first ones to show up for class, unlike some of her less-organized friends. This had carried over into college and eventually to her job.

But what was unusual was this: the reason Sakaki was up before the alarm was because she had spent almost the entire previous night awake.

She had printed out Chiyo-chan's letter and had read it over and over in her bed until it had lost all meaning and then kept reading it until the meaning came back again. At first this had been due to excitement, but as the hours went on and it went from dark back to light again, that feeling was replaced by one of apprehensiveness. She hadn't seen her friend in a long time and she wasn't sure what this reunion would be like. The child prodigy's letters always comforted her, but she had felt a growing unease that lately Chiyo-chan sounded... different. She wasn't sure whether that was all in her head or not, but that only unnerved her further.

Of course, Sakaki knew that Chiyo-chan was bound to have changed during the time she spent in America, and mentally she had accepted that, but emotionally she wasn't sure she was up for meeting her friend and discovering that she wasn't the same person anymore.

And so when the alarm went off, she was studying the letter with a growing unpleasant feeling in her stomach.

* * *

_A few hours later (of course)..._

Tomo was bored and decided it was time to check her email.

She rarely checked her email these days, but her instant ramen had been emptied from her breakfast bowl, the funnies had been read, she had already taken care of the... tooting of her own horn (so to speak), and there was nothing good on TV. And meanwhile, the computer just sat there in a particularly dark and messy corner of her apartment, humming. She felt that it ought to be put to good use for once.

She glided over to the computer on her socks (she took the trouble of doing the one chore of waxing her floor solely so she could do this in the mornings), moved the mouse furiously around on the bare desk to get the computer to come out of sleep mode, and clicked on the icon of her email client. A little hourglass popped up while the program furiously attempted to put together all the email it had received in the last few months, and after a few minutes of waiting (which tortured Tomo to no end) all the email was there in the little window and she was free to peruse at her leisure.

At the very bottom of the page there was the letter from Yomi she had saved asking her to knock it off. Above that was mostly spam, although there were a few angry letters from her boss and a couple of strange, rambling messages from Osaka, who still managed to stay in contact with her – unlike all of her other friends. She deleted the spam and the angry letters, marked the remaining messages as "urgent", and then moved on.

When she got to the top of the pile, she did a double-take. A letter from Chiyo-chan? Chiyo-chan never sent her anything! Oh, the young girl had tried to in the early days of her stay at America, but after a while Tomo stopped caring and eventually Chiyo, being smart, realized that Tomo didn't care anymore and stopped writing. For a second, Tomo thought she should ignore this one too, but she figured that if Chiyo-chan was sending her something after so much "radio silence", it must be important. Plus, the subject line caught her eye.

She read through the letter once quickly, and then again slowly when she realized she hadn't taken in a single word. Even then, it took a while to sink in. But soon it did:

"Oh _hell_ yes!"

As far as Tomo was concerned, this was the perfect opportunity. She lined up the facts in her head:

1) She knew that Yomi would be there.

2) She knew that if she was there too, then Yomi was bound to have to talk or at least have some kind of interaction with her.

3) She knew that if she bugged Yomi enough, she was bound to give in.

4) She knew that there would be free food. (This was an added bonus.)

She wrote a quick and sloppy reply ignoring most grammar rules and saying something along the lines of that she would be delighted to come, although she didn't say it quite like that (most notably, she used the word "kick-ass" several times).

With that, she closed her email client, then headed for the stereo and cranked up her favorite CD really loudly. She followed along invisibly with the guitar licks knowing that today was going to be a good day.

* * *

Koyomi was bored and decided it was time to check her email.

She rarely checked her email these days, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Fact was, there simply wasn't enough time available in her busy workday for her to get the chance to, and even when she did get the chance to, it was usually in the early morning when she was still tired from waking up so early and hungry from skipping breakfast (it was hard to find the time to eat what with her schedule). However, since this morning seemed to be particularly slow and she had had the sense to eat earlier, she decided to check her email.

She double-clicked her email client. Although there were a lot of unread emails, her computer was fast enough that they loaded quite quickly.

The bottom half of the inbox was entirely filled with increasingly desperate emails from Tomo. Koyomi deleted these without a second thought. The rest were mostly letters from subordinates, peers, and higher-ups in the company. There was, however, no spam, thanks to her state-of-the-art (and expensive) spamfilter. She read through some of the most important emails and wrote quick, to-the-point replies, marked the rest "urgent", and continued.

Nothing else of interest seemed to be there until she reached the top of the inbox.

A letter from Chiyo-chan? How unusual. Chiyo-chan rarely sent Koyomi letters, knowing that Koyomi was not usually caught up on her messages and was not big on personal email anyway. Koyomi knew that Chiyo knew, so she wondered what could be important enough that she would send a missive anyway. Due to that, and since the subject had caught her eye anyway, she immediately opened it and read through it.

Koyomi was torn; on the one hand, she often longed for her high school days, where things seemed simpler and (although she hadn't realized it at the time) there was a lot more room in the day to get things done. She very much missed her high school friends, and besides, she couldn't let Chiyo-chan down.

On the other hand, Tomo would be there.

Koyomi knew that Tomo would see this as an opportunity to try and patch things up, and Koyomi also knew that her friend would attempt to try and patch things up by annoying the shit out of her. Frankly, she wasn't too keen on that, especially not after having gotten rid of her so soon.

Still, though, she knew that if she didn't go, she would let Chiyo-chan down. She sat and thought about it for a while, letting her eyes slowly wander around the office in an absentminded way. Then something grabbed her attention.

A snowglobe sat on the windowsill in her office. Koyomi scooted over toward the window and picked up the globe to examine it. She vividly recalled its origins: Once, in high school, she and her classmates planned a trip to Magical Land. Although at the time the teenaged Yomi didn't want to admit it, she had been secretly thrilled by the idea and had even bought a guidebook to pore over in her spare time. However, due to an unfortunate bout of bad luck, when the day for the trip came around, she had been in bed with a fever. She had kind of hoped that everyone would stay behind due to her loss, but no, Tomo insisted (actually, she wasn't sure who had, but she liked to think it was Tomo) that they go on without her, that they shouldn't let this misfortune ruin the fun for everyone, that Yomi would _want_ them to go, et cetera. Not long afterward, Yomi felt much better and was back at school. Everyone raved to her about what a great time they had, and though she had tried to not to be angry or disappointed or, above all, sad, she in fact was all of those things. Not a single person there had attempted to make her feel better – except Chiyo-chan, that is. The girl had pulled out the very snowglobe Koyomi was holding now as a gift. Koyomi remembered the warm feeling that had enveloped her when it had been presented and the feeling came over her again now.

What had she been thinking? There was no way she couldn't come. The very last thing she wanted to do was disappoint a good friend. She hit "reply" and wrote what she hoped was a heartfelt letter explaining that she would love nothing in the world more than to come and be with not only Chiyo-chan, but all of her high school friends. Mentally, she left out one of them, but she didn't want to upset Chiyo and didn't write it down.

After she had sent the email, she continued to check more mail that she had, and felt unusually cheerful for about thirty minutes or so.

Then she remembered the finance report she had to deliver to her boss at 2 PM.

That she hadn't written a word of.

She closed her email client with a sigh, knowing that today was not going to be a good day.

* * *

If the atmosphere at Azuma High had been antsy yesterday, it was positively excited today. It was the last day before summer vacation, and the students had a hard time sitting in their seats. Of course they had to, since this wasn't America, where students often got away with goofing off on Arbor Day, Rutabaga Day, and whenever the children just didn't feel like working – at least, that's what most of the students at Azuma High _assumed_ happened in America. Lucky bastards.

But anyway, the atmosphere was definitely more charged than usual. And it was rather unfortunate for one of the staff members standing at the front of the class that this was the case, for she had some bad news to deliver.

"I'm canceling the Astronomy Club trip," said Aida Kaori-sensei.

The members of her club stared at her blankly from their desks. A bird call could be heard through the window. A student near the back of the classroom raised his hand.

"Yes, Watanabe-san?" Kaorin called on the boy.

"You must be joking," the boy said simply.

"I'm afraid not," Kaorin said, "Although I honestly wish I was..."

The club continued to stare at Kaorin in shock. She saw the looks on their faces and sighed. "Look..." she began.

They had been looking already.

"Look," she repeated. "I know I said that we were going no matter what, and I _meant _ it, I swear, I really did... But..." Kaorin gave the class an oddly intense look. "Something came up. Something big. Something I hadn't foreseen. And you all know that just because you mean things when you first say them doesn't necessarily mean those things will actually happen, right?"

A few students nodded robotically.

"I'm really sorry," Kaorin concluded. Her head hung down as if she was a child who had been caught stealing the cookies from the top shelf.

There was silence.

Then what Kaorin had been saying the whole time finally sunk in and suddenly the whole class was responding with bursts of outrage.

"But you _can't_ cancel the trip!"

"You said you'd take us! You _promised_ us!"

"Why can't we go? What did we do? Were we _bad_?"

"Hey, hey, no, hang on, stop!" Kaorin said quickly, waving her arms. She took a deep breath and then said in a calmer voice, "Please. Calm down."

The noise died out again.

"I really am sorry," the teacher said. She walked around the classroom. "As I said, something came up. I really wish I could go with you, but I can't. I... I'll try to... uh..." She trailed off upon noticing that one of her students – the same one that had told Ayumu-sensei how wonderful the trip was going to be – was in tears.

"Are you all right? Is something wrong, Yamamoto-san?"

The girl shook her head frantically through her tears. "N-no..." she managed to choke out. "I'm fine... r-really..."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be!" the girl gasped.

"No, but I should be," Kaorin said gravely. "I undermined the trust that you – all of you – and I had."

The girl continued to cry.

"Oh, please don't be like that." Kaorin smiled a little and looked the girl right in the eyes. The girl stopped crying immediately. "I'm sorry for what I did, but I assure you that I'm going to try my hardest to make up for it." The girl stopped, sniffled a little and nodded. Kaorin smiled again, this time more warmly, and the student blushed bright red.

"All right," said Kaorin, moving back to the front of the classroom and talking to all the kids again. "Like I said, I'm going to make sure I make up for this. I'll try not to let you down again, all right?" she said soothingly.

The kids all nodded.

"Great!" said Kaorin. "Well, see you after the break, then!" She gathered some papers together and, carrying them, walked out. The students sat still for a while, then got up and followed her.

* * *

Alone in the break room, Kaorin took a sip from a coffee mug irritably. The mug, which she had borrowed from Yukari-sensei (she always thought of Yukari as such, since she had difficulty thinking of her former teachers as peers), had an angry smiley face with fangs on it. Kaorin thought this mug was remarkably accurate in depicting how she felt nearly half the time.

Usually, her frequent anger was just a way for her to mask her frequent depression, and today was no different. It wasn't a big deal, really. It wouldn't have happened if it weren't for that letter.

As you, the reader, had probably suspected, she had in fact received the email from Chiyo-chan, although indirectly. Osa- er, Ayumu-san had wandered dreamily into the teacher's lounge carrying a piece of paper. When Kaorin asked about it, it turned out it was a computer printout, and Ayumu handed it readily to her. Furthermore, it turned out that this computer printout was a letter from Chiyo-chan inviting her, Ayumu, and even the teachers to the airport to pick her up and have a reunion. Despite that this was a pleasant surprise, nothing in the letter had particularly grabbed Kaorin's attention.

Until she had gotten to a short sentence near the bottom.

_If everything goes as planned, all the others will be there too - Yomi, Tomo, Sakaki, Kagura, and, of course, me._

Kaorin had blinked, then read it again.

_...all the others will be there too - Yomi, Tomo, Sakaki, Kagura..._

Kaorin had read through it a third time.

_**...Sakaki...**_

And Kaorin had suddenly felt a strange weakness all through her body.

She knew that it was stupid; she knew that it had just been a high school crush and nothing more. But still that sensation had filled her. Her stomach had turned over. She had felt dizzy and faint.

It made her uncomfortable. There was no reason for her to be feeling this way about someone she hadn't seen in five years, right? Someone she thought was out of her life forever? Shouldn't she have gotten over her in this time? And – this one bothered her the most – she was married, wasn't she? She loved her husband. Not this girl. This girl she hadn't seen in forever. This girl that she had wanted for such a long time. This girl that had always made her...

No, no, she couldn't think about that. She loved her husband and that was it. That was the extent of it. The end.

She took another sip from her mug and pulled a face.

"Eeugh, this coffee is really weak," she complained to herself.

"Is it?" said Ayumu, who was right behind her.

"Gah!" Kaorin nearly spilled her coffee. "Where did you come from?"

"The hallway," said Ayumu matter-of-factly. "Anyway, is that coffee really that weak?"

"Yeah," Kaorin replied. "This stuff couldn't wake up a chipmunk with ADHD. Hell, it couldn't even wake up Tomo."

"Well, Kurosawa-san was the one who made it today," Ayumu explained.

"Ah. I prefer it the way Yukari makes it. That stuff builds character. Not like this wimpy crap."

"I dunno, I tried some o' that stuff once," Ayumu rebutted. "I think it must have had some kinda demon or somethin' in it. I like tea way better than coffee anyway. That stuff's more relaxing."

"Feh." Kaorin took another sip of her coffee anyway. She proceeded to make another face. "Where is Yukari-sensei anyhow? I haven't seen her all day."

"Oh yeah," said Ayumu. "That's right, I forgot to tell ya. She flew off to America today already."

Kaorin nearly choked on her coffee. "Oh, goddammit!" Kaorin swore. "Why on Earth did she leave?! She's supposed to be teaching today. She's so irresponsible!"

"You all right, Kaorin?" Ayumu wondered. "You seem kinda angry. Are your plants dyin' or somethin'?"

"No, I'm perfectly fine. I don't have plants in my apartment anyway. If I did they'd wilt within a day."

"Well maybe yer just not good with plants. You don't like them tea leaves, for one. And flowers don't seem to like ya either," Ayumu continued thoughtfully.

"What?" Kaorin gave her associate a confused stare.

"Yeah," Ayumu said. "Wasn't there that time when you picked up some flower and did the whole thing where you took petals off it and asked it whether or not Sakaki-san would be in your class next year? You know, I've never understood that. Aren't you basically interrogating and torturing the flower when you do that? Isn't that against the Geneva Conven-"

But Kaorin hadn't been paying attention to Ayumu's rambling and cut right through it. "_What?!_ How did you know I did that?"

"Well, everybody knew! Word gets around fast in this school, yanno. I thought _you_ knew that everybody knew it. I didn't mean to-"

"No, no," Kaorin sighed, "It's fine." She buried her face in her free hand.

"Should I leave ya alone?" Ayumu's subtly concerned tone was evident to Kaorin, but only because she was so familiar with her friend's manner of speech. "'Cuz - oh hi Kurosawa-san!"

"Hello," said a female voice.

Kaorin turned around and saw that it was indeed the gym teacher. "Hey," she said in the friendliest voice she could muster. "Thanks for making the coffee."

"No problem," said Minamo courteously.

"Hey," Kaorin said, "Maybe you know – why was Yukari in such a hurry to leave anyway?"

"She said she didn't mean to, but she accidentally ordered tickets to a plane that left one day earlier than she thought."

"Typical," Kaorin grumbled. "When everyone else here is doing hard work Yukari is off somewhere running around like some teenaged kid over summer break! Man, does that ever piss me off!"

"Are you feeling okay?"

"Does it seem as though I'm feeling okay?" Kaorin said hotly.

"Honestly? Not really."

"Well, you're right," Kaorin sighed, "I'm not. I'm a little agitated. I've been like that a lot lately and I'm not totally sure why. I dunno, I guess it has something to do with that letter I got."

"What letter?"

"Oh, that's right, I forgot to tell you!" Kaorin handed the letter back to Kurosawa above her head.

Minamo snatched it and read it, raising her eyebrows. "Oh, neat! I wish I was invited. Wait, never mind, I am. Wow!" She looked over the sheet at Kaorin curiously. "Why would this irritate you?"

"No reason."

"I see. Are you going to invite Chihiro?"

Kaorin turned around toward Minamo and sighed. "No... probably not. We haven't really been... we haven't really been talking."

"Oh, yeah," Minamo sighed. "I keep forgetting... It's just hard to imagine one of you without the other... What happened, anyway?"

Kaorin turned back around glumly. "I dunno, it's just... We used to be really close, but these last few years, we've just sort of... drifted away from each other, is all..."

"It's a shame, really," said Ayumu sadly.

"I know." Kaorin shook her head. "She was my best friend in school."

"So," asked Minamo, eager to get away from such a downer of a subject, "You're both going to come, right?"

"'Course I'm gonna come!" said Ayumu, and if you knew her like the other two people in the room did, you knew that she was excited.

"You are too, right Aida-san?" Minamo said.

"You kidding?" Kaorin, despite her efforts to the contrary, gave Minamo a grin. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

* * *

_Thanks to everyone who made a response! Admittedly it was only three people, but your reviews still helped me a lot. I'll explain what happened to cause Kaorin to get married to a _guy_ (eww, cooties!) later in the story. Also, Suzuki-san and his son will indeed be recurring characters, which wasn't originally intended, but I liked them so much that I couldn't bear to end their story so soon. They'll probably show up at the beginning of the next chapter. I was gonna put them in this one but I kind of have a block right now concerning their story and I wanted to put this chapter up sooner rather than later._

_I know this chapter is also sorta long, but I dunno, I don't really like writing short chapters, I guess. Of course, this also means I won't update as frequently. But whadja gonna do. Maybe I'll make the next one shorter._

_See you all next time, and have a happy Rutabaga Day! Whatever that is!_


	3. Arrivals

**READ THIS: **_I really need to be more observant... I realized I made a mistake in Chapter 2. Nothing big, but enough that I felt it was important to make the change and important enough that you should probably re-read it, or at least the part near the end, which is the part I changed. I don't want a lack of knowledge of the change to affect your enjoyment of this fan fiction. But it probably shouldn't either way. Just thought you ought to know. Anyway, here we go._

**DISCLAIMER:**_ I don't own Azumanga Daioh. That Azuma guy does. Still._

* * *

**THINGS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN**

_an Azumanga fanfic by Einoo_

* * *

**CHAPTER III**

**ARRIVALS**

_"Practically everybody living near was invited. A very few were overlooked by accident, but as they turned up all the same, that did not matter."_ -_The Fellowship of the Ring,_ J.R.R. Tolkien

* * *

Our good friend and hard worker Suzuki-san was, once again, sitting in a waiting room. This time, however, it was in a hospital. And once again, he was accompanied, but instead of his dog, this time he was backed up by his son. His son was not nearly as energetic as his dog. In fact, both of them looked very grim.

"Will she be all right?" the son said quietly.

"Of course she'll be all right, Kichiro," said the father, who did not sound at all sure.

"I hope so," said the son quietly.

"Me too."

There was a long silence. The blades of the fan spun slowly and the clock seemed to be ticking even slower. The seconds kept coming horribly consistently, one after the other, then another one after that. Single file. Somehow the bright, pristine, disinfected hospital room was a hundred times worse than a dungeon.

"Want a magazine?" asked the father.

"No," replied the son.

"I didn't think so." Both the father and the son looked down at the floor.

They could hear her before they saw her– the door creaked, and her tennis shoes squeaked slightly on the white tile floor. They didn't look up, though, until she said a name.

"Suzuki Masaru-san?"

The father looked up slowly and saw a kind-looking but clearly harried nurse looking down on him. "Yes?"

"I'm afraid I have some bad news," she said. It sounded like she was trying to put some emotion into it, even though it was probably just another number for her.

The father and the son didn't reply. They merely stared blankly.

"It's your wife, sir..."

"Is she-" Masaru inhaled sharply and couldn't continue.

"Well... she's alive... but..." The nurse shook her head. "I'm terribly sorry, sir, but she's lapsed into a coma."

Masaru's cell phone rang.

* * *

The early morning sun peeked above the horizon and stretched out its arms toward the airport.

A tan, blonde-haired woman with sunglasses and a baseball cap tapped one foot impatiently. She held up a card upon which the name "CHIYO" had been quickly scrawled.

She looked around. No one else was there. Well, this wasn't true at all. There were many, many, many people there. It was, in fact, extremely crowded. It just happened that none of them was anyone she knew. She sighed and adjusted her T-shirt.

"Excuse me... do I know you?" said a quiet voice.

The woman, startled, turned her head sharply to look at another woman, taller than she was. After the moment it took to realize what she was looking at, she smiled.

"Hi, Sakaki-san!" said the card-holder in an exceedingly friendly tone.

"Er... how do you know my name?" Sakaki asked in puzzlement.

"What do you mean? Why wouldn't I?" the woman said confusedly. "I- Oh wait, right, of course, I'm so dumb!" She took off the baseball cap, took off the blonde wig and shook it out, and took off her sunglasses and stowed them in Kagura's pocket – which is to say, hers.

Sakaki was understandably a little put off. She thought for a second about what to say, then gave up and just went "Uhhhhhh..."

"Oh, all this?" Kagura said brightly. "It's my disguise! As an Olympic-level athlete, I need to wear this or else I'll get mobbed by rabid fans!"

"Really?" Sakaki asked.

Kagura chuckled. "No, probably not, but I like to imagine it. Hey, do you want this?" She had just realized she was still holding the blonde wig and held it out in front of Sakaki, who merely shook her head. "Yeah, I thought not. I'll just hold onto it then... I knew I should have brought my backpack..." She continued to mutter to herself in an irritated fashion for a while.

There was a pause.

"So..." said Kagura. "...What do you want to do?"

* * *

"Come on, Sakaki, one more time! Best 200 out of 300?"

"But..." Sakaki shook her head. "I'm getting kind of tired of rock paper scissors... can't we do something else?"

"I dunno, I have some cards, we could play Go Fish... Or, I have some paper, we could play hangman or tic-tac-toe..." said Kagura eagerly.

Sakaki sighed. "Can't we just talk?"

"Talk?" Kagura repeated. "Why?"

Sakaki didn't answer.

"Uh... sure... I guess..." Kagura mumbled. She paused for a second, then continued cheerily, "Well, _I_ can talk, but I don't know about you! Ha ha ha!"

She laughed, but it was forced, and then an awkward silence fell upon the two of them. Fortunately, just then there was another arrival.

"Yomi!" Kagura yelled delightedly, waving her arms over her head. "Yomi, we're over here!"

Koyomi was so surprised to hear someone yelling her nickname that she spun around so fast she nearly fell over. She caught herself just in time, though, and continued to talk on her cell phone as she walked toward the pair of former sports rivals:

"No, I already talked to him this morning. Really? You're right, that _is_ terrible, but it doesn't excuse... No, I just think it's irresponsible of him to miss work so often... I know, but regardless. That's my decision and I'm sticking to it... No... No. No, there isn't. Sorry. See you wh- Hello?... Damn..."

The person she had been talking with had disconnected already. She closed her phone and finally started paying attention.

This caused her to realize she had walked straight past Kagura and Sakaki.

She sheepishly walked back to their area. "Sorry about that... Business, you know."

Sakaki gave a small noise and a blank stare in reply. Kagura considered offering Yomi the wig but then quickly _re_considered and did no such thing. Instead, she asked, "Yomi-chan, what are you doing here?"

"What do you mean what am I doing here? I'm here to pick up Chiyo from the airport. Just like you."

"No," Kagura clarified. She spread her arms out wide. "I mean, what are you doing here without Tomo?"

Koyomi was going to glare at Kagura, but for some reason she couldn't do it. Instead she suddenly and inexplicably felt somewhat foolish, looked down at her feet, and merely said, "I dunno." Then some of her confidence returned and she looked up again and added, "We don't have to hang around with each other every minute of every day, do we?"

Kagura didn't seem to have much of an answer to that. Neither did Sakaki, but she never did. She didn't really seem to be paying attention anyway.

"So, uh..." Koyomi said to Sakaki, trying to strike up some conversation. "Looking forward to seeing Chiyo again?"

"What?" It seemed as though Sakaki had just been jolted out of a reverie. "Oh, uh... Yeah... I suppose..." She then fell silent.

"Uhhh... I see," said Koyomi lamely.

This silence was broken when Sakaki said, "Er..."

"Yeah, what is it?" Kagura immediately looked away from the random spot she was looking past and turned to Sakaki. "Do you want me to challenge you at something? Say yes!"

"I need to use the bathroom," said Sakaki.

"Oh..." Kagura looked put out. "Well... sure, go right ahead. It's over thataway." She pointed vaguely to somewhere and Sakaki went off in that direction.

No sooner than Sakaki had gotten lost in the crowd then someone else showed up.

"Hey, Kagura, Yomi-san, what's going on?" A woman, about the same age as them, greeted them fairly genially.

"Nothing much," said Kagura, "What's going on with you, uh... wait... no, don't tell me... who are you?"

The woman stared back at Kagura looking nonplussed.

"No, no," said Kagura, "I swear, I remember who you are, I just... I mean, well... I don't remember who you are... Do I know you?"

The woman sighed. "I'm Chihiro."

She received two blank looks in reply.

"Kaorin's friend?" Chihiro prompted.

Nothing.

"Chiyo-chan tutored me on weekends. I was president of the calligraphy club for a while. I started a band in my senior year."

Nothing still.

Chihiro groaned. "I helped Kaorin make Chiyo's penguin costume at the culture fest."

"Ohhhhhhhhhh," said Kagura. Yomi didn't say anything but looked equally enlightened.

"I'm going to use the bathroom now," Chihiro grumbled.

"OK," said Kagura. "We'll be waiting! Boy," she added to herself, "Everyone's using the bathroom... So uh... Yomi... yeah..."

"Yeah..." Yomi agreed. She was starting to realize she had never really talked with Kagura that much. She coughed. "So... uh, how's your life?"

"Oh, I've just been doing... well, stuff..." Kagura sighed. "Swimming, running, some triathlons, you know, this and that... but not right now, I'm taking a break. I mean, I love what I do, but all work and no play makes Kagura a dull girl, you know? I need some... me time. Oh, sorry, I'm talking too much. What about you?"

"I work in an office."

"Oh," Kagura said. "Well... That's nice... I guess."

There was another silence, but again, it didn't take long for the silence to be broken, as not one but three people came up to them this time - and one of the most unlikely trios that could have arrived together.

"Hello Yomi, hello Kagura," Kaori mumbled. She was holding an insulated paper cup with a rather large amount of steam pouring out of it and had a severe case of bedhead.

"Hi guys!" said Ayumu, looking the same as always.

"Oh, you're already here," Kurosawa said pleasantly.

"...Kurosawa-sensei!" Kagura's mouth widened into a smile. "How have you been?"

"There's no need to call me that anymore," said Minamo. "You can just call me Kurosawa-san. Or even Nyamo if you want."

"No, no," Kagura insisted, waving her hands, "I wouldn't call you anything else. You deserve the respect."

"Oh, er..." 'Kurosawa-sensei' looked embarrassed but pleased. "Thank you..."

"Um..." said Yomi, a bit put off by this conversation, "Hello, Kurosawa-san... Kaorin... Osa-"

"It's Kasuga," Kaori corrected.

"What?" said Yomi and Kagura together.

"Kasuga Ayumu. It's h–" She let out a huge yawn mid-word– "her name."

"Oh," said Yomi.

"So you don't like being called Osaka anymore, then?" Kagura asked.

"I never did," said Ayumu, without sounding bitter or angry. "I thought it was too simple. I wouldn't've minded if people'd called me something more creative, like Telephone, or General Custard."

"I see." Yomi gave the new arrivals an examining look. "Why exactly did you all show up together? Carpooling?"

"We work together," said Kaori, taking a swig of her coffee.

"I'm being serious," said Yomi.

"So am I," Kaori countered. "Ayumu-san teaches at our old school school with Kurosawa-san, and I went there as a guest speaker but eventually started volunteering my time there."

This sort of chatter continued for a while, with all the girls catching up with each other. Eventually, the chatter died down, but then Kaorin asked a question.

"Hey," she said, messing with her hair involuntarily, "Do you have any idea when Sakaki's going to show up?"

"Hmm?" said Kagura. "Oh, Sakaki? She's already here."

"What?!" Kaorin dropped her fifth cup of coffee on the floor. "You mean she's-"

"Excuse me, did someone mention my name?"

"Hi Sakaki!" Kaorin shouted as she turned beet red. "Hi! I'm Kaorin! You might remember me! Or not! Hi! I'm fine! How are you!"

"Uh... Hello..." Sakaki responded. "And hello to Osaka and Kurosawa-sensei as well." They nodded to acknowledge her presence. "It's good to see you all again."

"Yes," Kaorin recited, standing stock still. "It is very good. Hi, I am an astronomer. That is the field in which I work."

"Uh... Are you all right?" asked Sakaki. "Do you need some fresh air or something?"

Minamo and Ayumu snuck worried looks at Kaorin.

"Yeah, I think I would need some... of that... some fresh air... like you said..." Kaorin giggled frantically, then hurried away from the group and shook her wrists as she hyperventilated.

_Oh god oh god oh god_, her mind screamed at her, _What the hell was that? I was acting like a little kid! I bet I looked so stupid! I bet she thought I was stupid! Agh, I _am_ stupid! God I gotta find someplace to hide!_ She wandered randomly through the swirling maze of the airport, this gate, that gate, through people and metal and plastic, all blurred with speed and wooziness. _Oh man I just realized that I have no idea where I'm going! Why am I doing this, why should I care about what Sakaki thinks, why did I get so weird around her, am I just intimidated about her because of high school? Aaaagh, jeez, there's nothing that could make this more awkward!_

That's when, due to the fact that she had no clue where she was going, she rammed straight into Chihiro.

* * *

Kagura looked around anxiously. "It's almost time! Where is everybody?" The card with Chiyo's name on it, which had been temporarily forgotten, was being wielded once more by the athlete.

"I wasn't aware anyone was missing," said Yomi, a little loudly.

"...Well yeah Yomi, jeez, of course there's people missing," Kagura replied, tapping her foot increasingly rapidly. "There's Tomo, obviously, you of all people should know that, and plus there's Kaorin and what's-her-name..."

"Actually, now that you mention it, I wonder where _Chihiro_–" She emphasized this name and gave Kagura a slightly reprimanding look– "ran off to."

"Maybe," Ayumu postulated, "She ran into Kaorin."

"Could be," Minamo hazarded. "They would have a lot of catching up to do."

"Really? I was gonna say that they were making out." Ayumu said this with such a wide-eyed sincerity that everyone else squirmed and backed a few paces away from her.

Except, of course, for Sakaki, who was staring off at nothing and starting to look a little sick to her stomach.

"Sakaki, are you OK?" asked Kagura, momentarily distracted from her own anxiousness.

"What?" Sakaki only just seemed to realize that everyone else was still there. "Oh, no, I'm fine..."

"Well, I hope so, because Chiyo-chan's supposed to be here in like..." Kagura checked her watch. "three minutes ago."

"W-what?" Sakaki suddenly went pale.

"Are you all right? Why are you so worried? Don't you want to see her again?"

"Well, yes, but... I mean... what if it's not Chiyo-chan?"

"What are you talking about? Of course it'll be Chiyo-chan. Do you think someone's going to be impersonating her?" Kagura nearly laughed, but then Yomi shot her a "don't-press-your-luck" look and she shut up.

"It's all right, Sakaki-san," said Minamo consolingly. "I'm sure she's just the same as she ever was."

"Well, I guess we'll find out," said Ayumu cheerfully.

"Look!" Kagura shouted. Everyone turned their heads to see her pointing out into the crowd. "I think I see her!"

Sakaki squinted and could just barely make out amidst the other passengers a red-haired girl walking towards them...

* * *

_Lordy, it's taken me so long just to get to chapter three... Originally, I said here that in a few months it would be a year since I posted chapter one of this, but then I realized I was actually thinking of when I started the fic I was writing BEFORE that. It's actually only been since March. That's kind of a relief... otherwise I would feel _really_ slow. Anyway, I'm sorry for being sluggish in writing this, but I guess that's just how I am. On a pretty much unrelated note, I wish I could write stuff that's less dialogue-heavy. It always feels to me like there's less descriptive language than there should be and too much talking._

_Also Chihiro totally did start a band in her senior year. Do not deny this. I have willed it and so it is true._


	4. Chiyo San?

**UNNECESSARY DISCLAIMER:**_ I don't own Azumanga Daioh. That Azuma guy does. Still._

_Oh, by the way, I hate to do this, because it feels so cheap-and-easy, but when words are in _**bold,** _that means they're in English. If it's in **bold and italic,** though, that just means it's really loud. So... yeah.  
_

* * *

**THINGS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN**

_an Azumanga fanfic by Einoo_

* * *

**CHAPTER IV**

**CHIYO-SAN?**

_"He knows changes aren't permanent  
But change is"_

-_Tom Sawyer,_ Rush

* * *

Kaorin stared at the woman lying face-down on the airport floor.

"Oh my God," Kaorin apologized quickly as she brushed herself off, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to bump into you like that at all, I just didn't pay attention to where I was going, and it's all my fault, I'm really sorry. Are you all right? You look hurt, are you hurt? Do you need me to get a doc-"

The woman she had bumped into got up and Kaorin froze completely.

Chihiro looked rather bemused, but also suddenly seemed a bit tired. "Hello," she said.

"Yeah, uh... hi." Kaorin said in a small voice. "I didn't expect you... that is, uh... fancy meeting you here..."

"Well, I kind of was invited," Chihiro said, trying not to sound sarcastic, at least in tone. What she actually said could really only be taken one way.

"Well, cool... I mean, it's been a while, hasn't it?" Kaorin sighed.

"Yeah, it really has been. We sort of... you know... since the marriage..."

"We did, didn't we..." Kaorin admitted. "I dunno why, I was... I mean, you're a good friend. But I guess I was busy."

"How are you and, uh... what's his... you know, your husband?" Chihiro coughed.

"Oh, we're really great, we're going to celebrate our two-year anniversary soon," said Kaorin, dropping in the mention of the anniversary almost automatically at this point - she had been telling everyone for months.

"That's great," said Chihiro, which was the standard response to the announcement for most people.

"Yeah, it's crazy how things turn out, huh?" Kaorin said. "Anyway, we'd probably better get back to the main group now so we don't miss Chiyo-chan showing up."

Chihiro agreed and they started making their way back to the group.

* * *

Their return was fortuitously timed, for mere seconds after they rejoined the group, Chiyo arrived, staring at the group with awe.

"So... uh... well..." Chiyo paused for a second, then finally said something: "Wow. I mean... _wow."_

"'Wow' is a pretty fair way to put it," Minamo remarked as she gave Chiyo a good look for the first time.

Indeed it was a pretty fair way to put it. Perhaps even a great way to put it. When she had left Japan, Chiyo-chan was still Chiyo-_chan_ – a small and naïve girl who was immature at heart. Astonishingly intelligent for her age, to be sure, but still a child, a child that loved meatballs more than any other food, a child that separated disposable chopsticks for good luck, a child who feared above all else a car trip with Yukari-sensei.

But this Chiyo was no longer a child. She certainly was no longer small – she actually was fairly tall for her age (and ethnic background). Not quite as tall as Sakaki, of course, but she still had quite a few inches on, say, Ayumu – who, incidentally, she was also no longer in the same "group" with. She actually made for a quite attractive young woman. But more important than outside appearances, she had grown up on the inside. All of the gang could see it. There was something in her calm and graceful demeanor that indicated the change she had gone through. Even just the smile on her face and the light in her eyes revealed that she was a more mature and stable person.

She was still scared to death of the Yukarimobile, though. I mean, who wouldn't be?

"I mean..." Chiyo flushed a little. "I'm really seeing you all again! This is so... strange... and–" She struggled slightly for a word– _"magnificent."_

"Yeah, it's kinda freaky," Ayumu interjected.

Everyone turned to give her a look. Yomi in particular frowned at her. "That's not a very nice way to-"

"Oh, no, don't worry." Chiyo beamed. "I know what she means. It's just... so..." Her eyes suddenly shined with emotion. "I mean, I... you guys..."

Before she knew what she was doing, she suddenly raced towards a flustered Sakaki and engaged her in a spontaneous embrace.

"I..." A blush so fierce that its hue rivaled that of Chiyo's hair assaulted Sakaki's face. "Chiyo... er... Chiyo... san?"

"Oh! Sorry!" Chiyo snapped away quickly, obviously humiliated at her sudden outburst. "I don't know what came over me... So... uh..." She looked around at the gang awkwardly until she spotted Kaorin and Chihiro hanging out in back, the former with her gaze fixated a bit too intensely upon a vending machine in a corner.

"Oh, hey, I'm glad you could make it," she said, walking over to them. "Especially you, Chihiro-san... Sorry I forgot to mention you in the letters I sent to everyone else, but you're... I mean, no, you're not, it's–" Chiyo fumbled a bit with her words– "Sorry, I don't mean to imply that–"

"It's all right," said Chihiro bluntly. "I know. I'm forgettable."

"Er."

An awkward silence descended over the group before Kagura broke it.

"Hey," she asked, "Where's Tomo?"

Chiyo did a triple take.

"Wh- She's not here yet?" She scratched her head. "I could have sworn... Well, it _did_ seem a little too quiet," The woman chuckled to herself. It almost looked to her like Sakaki flinched a little at that comment, but she dismissed this as her imagination. Meanwhile, Koyomi was staring out the large airport window with a bit too keen an interest. "Well, I'm sure she'll show up eventuall-"

Just as Chiyo said this, Tomo rammed straight into her, and the recently-arrived traveler screamed something very rude-sounding in English before falling to the floor.

"Oh, shit!" Tomo screeched as she dusted herself off quickly. "Crap! I... don't really... er... **good morning... madame... the... I'm... **gomen...** don't speaks English...**"

"Er... What?"

"Oh. Phew! Thank God. Uh, I... sorry, miss, but-"

_"Miss?"_ Chiyo repeated. "That's how you greet me after all these years?"

"...Uhh... What? Who are you?" Tomo squinted, as if this would help identify the woman she was looking at.

"Um, the person you came here to meet?"

Tomo stared.

Chiyo sighed, pulled out two hair ties from her pocket, and gave herself pigtails.

For a second it was almost as if someone had pressed "pause".

Then:

**_"NO WAY!!!!!"_**

Tomo backed her way into a support beam.

Chiyo gave Tomo a sly grin. "You haven't changed much."

"You have!" Tomo managed to let out between heavy breaths. Clearly she was still dealing with this new information. "I mean... they're bigger than mine!" Tomo made an unsubtle hand gesture to illustrate this point.

"That doesn't take much," Chiyo said, and despite her witty retort (which left a few members of the group trying to stifle their giggling), she blushed a deep sunset-red.

"Probably." Tomo was shell-shocked enough that she apparently missed Chiyo's barb. Instead of retaliating, she closed her eyes for a moment and wiped the sweat off her brow. She continued to lean on the support beam for a few seconds, but she then seemed to recover herself quickly.

And then proceeded to get run over by a sprinting man with a downtrodden-looking boy in tow. (The rolling luggage bag did not help matters.)

After Tomo recovered a second time and the boy had apologized profusely, she finally noticed the others.

"Whoa! Look!" She punched the air overenthusiatically, perhaps being eager to brush away the previous awkward moment. "Incredible! The gang's all here! **Dynamite!** Hi guys! Hi Yo- Hey, where's Yomi?"

Indeed, it seemed as though Yomi had vanished into thin air, and the others were a bit surprised to notice she was gone.

Tomo looked disappointed for a second, but then immediately covered it up with enthusiasm. "Ah, well, she's probably just using the bathroom or something! I'm sure it's not because she hates me now and doesn't want to talk to me! Ha ha! That would be ridiculous!"

Everyone just gave her odd looks.

"Uh, yeah." She mussed the hair on the back of her head. "So, uh, yeah, what's the plan? Like, where do we go from here?"

Kagura shrugged. "I dunno, I was thinking we'd eat breakfast."

"I guess," Tomo said awkwardly, "But we'll have to wait for Yomi first."

There was a thick silence.

"Hey!" Tomo's eyes widened and she turned back to Chiyo. "What do you _mean_ it doesn't take much?"

The people who had stifled their giggling before now burst into uncontrollable laughter.

* * *

The son had on his "utterly despairing" look, which he found to his dismay was lately becoming his default expression. He was barely able to hold on to his rolling luggage bag out of exhaustion. "Father..." he began, being careful not to look said father in the eye and not to fall behind, "Are you sure going on this trip is the right thing to do?"

The father nodded firmly, his feet moving at a brisk pace. "Even though I have been laid off from my job, I have already bought these tickets to Paris, and even though my Yui-chan is in a coma, I know she would have wanted us to go."

"Okay... sorry," the son said quietly.

"You don't have to apologize," his father said just as quietly. "You were just asking a question."

"Sorry for apologizing," the son apologized.

The father sighed and shook his head slightly. His son was not exactly the most assertive person, and apologizing was essentially a reflex for him. The schools didn't help much either; in fact, it seemed as though they were trying to make all the kids timid and drain them of their self-worth. Such was the Japanese way. It made them easily moldable into workers.

Because he was thinking about such things, he wasn't totally paying attention, and so accidentally ran straight into some woman.

"A-ah-I-uh..." The son stuttered and frantically waved his hands around. "I didn't mean- I mean- errr, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do that!"

"No, that's fine," the woman mumbled, lying on the floor with her eyes closed and her hands clutching her head.

"Sorry for the trouble," another woman (whose looks reminded the boy inexplicably of a brash anime character whose name he couldn't quite remember- it started with A?) said, smiling sheepishly.

"No trouble at all," said the father in a small voice, before grabbing on to his son by the hand and moving on.

Actually, though, it was trouble, especially when they got to their destination:

The delay had caused them to miss their flight.

* * *

The father and son ended up sitting on an uncomfortable bench.

"Hey," said the father softly, "Want a Dr. Pepper from the soda machine?"

The son merely snored in response.

* * *

_Before I say anything, R&R, please! I like to know what you think about my stories, so please tell! I'll be your friend if you do! (maybe)_

_Anywho, sorry it took so long. Pardon my French, but this chapter was a _bitch_ to write. Actually, I'm not sure why I'm asking you to pardon my language, since I use worse words in the actual chapter (most of the time being said by Tomo). But seriously, saying I wrote myself into a corner here is a severe understatement... even if I'm not entirely sure why. I mean, it doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would cause my writing to grind to a halt, but it sure did. If the writing style seems inconsistent, it's because the times at which various parts of this chapter were written vary wildly from just after the third chapter came out to tonight when I finally finished it (to the repeated tune of "Too Hot to Stop" by the Bar-Kays - you know, that funky song that Superbad opens with?)._

_Just to give you a better idea of my complete disregard for timeliness, let me inform you that I posted the first chapter to this fanfic in March 2008. _It's June 2009 now. _Good _grief,_ am I slow. Admittedly, I have been focusing slightly more on other projects, such as my recently-started Haruhi Suzumiya fanfiction, which I advise you to check out if you're into that sort of thing, but still. I'm a baaaaaaaad widdle boy, and I deserve to be punished._

_On the other hand, at least I've gotten to the point where Chiyo has been introduced, so I might be able to start writing chapters that aren't so damn long now, and therefore I might update more frequently._

_But don't count on it._


End file.
